When Tamaran woke up, sunlight poured in through the gaps in the curtains and she was alone in the room.
At this moment, many images of last night emerged in her mind, as if it was a dream.
She got up, found a piece of clothing and put it on. After washing up, when Tamaran walked out of the bedroom, she saw the housekeeper Riley coming over.
"Hello, Miss Ecclestone."
"Ms. Riley, where is Barron?"
Hearing Tamaran's words, Riley smiled and said,
"His Royal Highness the Duke is meeting a guest in the reception room on the second floor. He has instructed that if you are awake, you can eat something first. Shall I ask the kitchen to prepare breakfast now?"
After hearing what Riley said, Tamaran suddenly felt hungry. She nodded and said:
"Okay, thank you, Ms. Riley."
"It's my pleasure."
…
At this time in the reception room on the second floor, sitting in front of Barron was BBC President Dyke, who had come all the way from London.
The other party had only one purpose, which was to increase its investment in Digital UK so as to increase the BBC's shareholding in this digital television network with the largest number of users in the UK.
"What you need to know is that we initially sold a majority stake in Digital UK, but the BBC was not enthusiastic about bearing the huge upfront costs, so we SEM Group had to take over control of the company and insisted on making a high investment when funds were already tight. And now..."
Barron's words made Dyke feel a little embarrassed, because what he said was the truth.
As early as the second half of 2002, SEM Group reached an agreement with the BBC, and the two companies jointly invested to establish Digital UK, which is responsible for managing the strategy, policy and service development of UK digital terrestrial television.
Digital UK's shareholding ratio is 60% for SEM Group and 40% for BBC. The two companies invest according to their shareholding ratio to promote the terrestrial digital television platform Freeview.
Later, ITV also joined Digital UK. Currently, the shareholding ratio of Digital UK is 51% held by SEM Group, 34% by BBC and 15% by ITV.
The reason why SEM Group was able to hold so many shares in Digital UK in the beginning was that the BBC itself gave up most of its holdings in the company.
The reason is that after ITV Digital failed to compete with SBSky in the initial terrestrial digital television path and went bankrupt, although the BBC took over some of ITV Digital's terrestrial digital channels at the request of the British government, they did not have much confidence in the development of terrestrial digital television technology and did not want to invest too much energy in it.
What's more, according to the commitments made to the government when the BBC and SDTV took over the three channels of ITV Digital respectively, Digital UK needs to invest at least 100 million pounds every year in the next five years, with a total of no less than 500 million pounds, to develop terrestrial digital television.
This figure is difficult for the BBC to accept, or they simply have no desire to invest so much money in the development of terrestrial digital television.
Therefore, when the two companies finally jointly established Digital UK, a company used to promote terrestrial digital television and launch the Freeview platform, the BBC took the initiative to give up most of its shares and only held 40% of the shares.
At that time, Barron, the company behind the SEM Group, did not have as much money as it does now. It can be said that investing so much money in Digital UK was a desperate move in the eyes of others.
It is also worth mentioning that when ITV later decided to join Digital UK, it had already achieved great results and its prospects began to look promising.
Because of this, when iITV joined, the BBC also limited the proportion of shares that ITV could obtain. In the end, ITV invested 150 million pounds and obtained 15% of Digital UK's shares, instead of investing more money and obtaining a share ratio of more than 25% as they had originally expected.
The number of users of the Freeview platform now exceeds 12 million, making it the largest digital TV broadcasting platform in the UK, far exceeding Sky TV - although Sky TV's channels are mainly paid, there are still differences between the two.
Under such circumstances, the BBC is somewhat dissatisfied with its 34% stake in Digital UK. Today, the BBC president came all the way from London specifically to discuss this matter with Barron.
"If the BBC is willing to increase its investment in the company based on Digital UK's valuation, it is not impossible to issue you some additional shares."
Barron looked at the man in front of him and said calmly,
"However, as shareholders of Digital UK, SEM Group and ITV also have the right to allot shares in equal amounts."
Dyke, who had been showing a little joy, frowned again after hearing Barron's next words:
"Your Highness, this result will probably not make much difference to our shareholding ratio."
"So everyone knows that Digital UK has great prospects, so what is the BBC going to do to convince me? You should understand that the biggest obstacle to the BBC's increasing shareholding is not us, but ITV."
"But you have a controlling stake and if we can reach an agreement, ITV's objection will be invalid."
Hearing Dyke's words, Barron laughed:
"So how do I get the motivation to do this?"
"Perhaps, Your Highness, we can push Digital UK to go public through an IPO..."
Seeing Barron's inquiring look, Dyke continued:
"This is good news for both Digital UK's financing and the determination of the company's value."
"But the fact is that Digital UK has not yet achieved profitability."
"It's very simple. In terms of profitability, all you need to do is increase the fees on the Freeview platform."
Hearing the other party's words, Barron slowly came back to his senses...
After all this time, it seems that the BBC is really targeting ITV?
Although according to media reports, the BBC's financial situation has not been good recently, ITV's financial situation is even worse than the BBC...
In fact, if SDTV was not supported by Summit Media, it would still be losing money...
Barron was a little puzzled at first. Why did the BBC suddenly become wealthy and increase its stake in Digital UK at this time?
After all this time, their purpose is to increase the fees charged by the Freeview platform to the TV stations that broadcast on it, which will also increase the financial pressure on ITV.
But this is a double-edged sword. It will also have an impact on the BBC, but the BBC will always be able to survive, but ITV may not be able to...
Is it necessary for these two companies to be so confrontational?
Baron did not expect that the reason for the intensified competition between BBC and ITV was that SDTV under his SEM Group could be regarded as a catfish stirring up the chaos.
After all, SDTV has occupied a large piece of the pie in many fields, especially in the field of variety shows, so the competition for the remaining piece of the pie will naturally be more intense.
"I still need to think about it, and I believe there will be a result soon."
In the end, Barron politely saw off BBC President Dyke.
As for the BBC's proposal...
It doesn't seem impossible.